


Hammer Therapy

by Lokei



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-01
Updated: 2006-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-18 21:58:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokei/pseuds/Lokei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Will POV missing scene, between the arrest of Jack Sparrow and the attack on Port Royal by the Black Pearl. Will contemplates a seriously frustrating and puzzling day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hammer Therapy

**Author's Note:**

> That look of Will’s when his sodden “master” smith takes the credit for stopping Jack’s escape is one of my favorite moments in POTC. This story grew out of that one heart-stoppingly adorable look of annoyance.

“Just doing my civic duty, sir,” Will quoted bitterly to the silent smithy, picking up the shards of bottle glass from the sandy floor and wiping stray bits of soot out of his face.

“Excellent work, Mr. Brown, you’ve assisted in the capture of a dangerous fugitive. Hah!” He glared indignantly at the chair in which his erstwhile master liked to sit and snooze while his far more talented journeyman did all the work.

“As if you’ve lifted anything heavier than a bottle since I was fourteen,” he muttered at the chair. “Shouldering civic duty would surely be beyond you.” Fortunately, the chair was empty, the aforementioned J. Brown having taken himself off to the tavern to boast of his afternoon’s work in saving his useless apprentice from death at the end of a pirate’s pistol. That the majority of the town had an unspoken understanding of who actually did most of the work at Brown’s smithy was small comfort to the aggravated younger man.

Tossing the rest of the glass into the rubbish barrel, Will rubbed the back of his neck and looked around the smithy, eye alighting on his hammer, still in the wrong place where that pirate had left it. Disorder in the forge frustrated Will, and he hefted it with a sigh. Over all, in fact, it had been a frustrating day, and there was more yet to be done—in a busy shipping town like Port Royal, there were not only the usual farm implements and horse shoes, but someone always needed chain links fixed or a nautical tool repaired or replaced, and the scuffle with the pirate—what was his name, Sparrow? In any case, the scuffle had put a serious dent in his work routine. Having had to reinvent some semblance of order in his life after being rescued from the shipwreck all those years ago, Will did not particularly appreciate strange smelly pirates with too many beads in their hair interrupting his carefully constructed existence.

 _Pirates._ He shuddered. According to his mother, he had lost his father to them, and then later he had lost his last remembrance of his parents when pirates attacked his ship from England—he would be happy to never encounter one again.

He gave the hammer an experimental swing, trying to ease his mental and emotional turbulence. Better. Something to hit would be even more satisfactory. He hunted up the order book and decided that his mood was too fierce for the delicate attention of sword-smithy, but he could happily beat his frustration out on a bunch of plow blades. That would do. Pulling an appropriately heated iron from the fire, he mulled over the day in the rhythm of the hammer strokes.

 _Clang._

 _“Exquisite craftsmanship. Give my compliments to your master.”_

 _Clang._

An old pain, but no less frustrating in its familiarity. The complete oblivious propriety of the Governor never failed to astonish Will, who rather prided himself on his perspicacity. Others who had received blades made by Will’s hands had known their maker, and acknowledged the pride of a craftsman for what it was. In contrast, Governor Swann had a truly obnoxious tendency to treat Will exactly the same as he had since finding the shipwrecked ten year old, tossing like a piece of flotsam out of the ocean and into his and his daughter’s lives. Thinking of Elizabeth…

 _Clang. Clang. Clang._

 _“Will! I had a dream about you last night!”_

 _Clink._

Will bit back a curse as the hammer slipped off its target and hit the anvil with a weak thud. Elizabeth…who could afford such informalities as calling him by his first name, because she was the Governor’s daughter. Elizabeth, who could say blithely she had dreamed of him, never dreaming of the hopes she managed to raise and dash with the simple addition of her next phrase.

 _“The day we met, do you remember?”_

It was as if the entire Swann family was conspiring to keep him in the place of the boy he had been, adopted foundling of the house, though much less than an adopted son. And yet that was unfair of him—he had just as quickly snuffed the pleasure in her eyes by insisting on the formality required by her father’s presence.

“Good day, Elizabeth,” Will repeated to himself softly, endeavoring to make it one simple phrase, a pleasantry, a courtesy. He lifted his hammer again, speaking with the down-stroke as if that would help the sound flow more easily.

“Elizabeth.”

 **  
_Clang._   
**

He could not do it. He could not speak her name without feeling as if all the dammed up emotions of nine years were pouring into every syllable. He struck the plow-blade again, the dull ringing of the metal indicating it needed to be thrust once more into the fire for further shaping.

When it was ready, Will hefted the hammer again, his train of thought resuming with the accustomed rhythm as he began to shape the blade.

 _Clang-clang._

 _“Do you think this wise, boy, crossing blades with a pirate?”_

 _Clang-clang._

A taunt, meant to provoke, or only to scare? Either way, he had answered it, full of righteous indignation on Elizabeth’s behalf. What was it Sparrow had said when Will accused him of threatening her? “Only a little.”

 _Clink._

 _Only a little?_ How could one threaten someone “only a little?” His opponent seemed to have more shades of gray in his morals than Will did. It was one of many puzzles about this pirate, insulting as he was. Why pause in the middle of a skirmish to discuss Will’s romantic life? Eunuch, indeed. Not hardly. The corner of Will’s mouth twitched despite himself, appreciating the humor, even if it was at his own expense. Frankly, sword practice was as much a method of letting off steam as his own current activities, but he would rather the earth swallow him whole before he admitted it to a cocksure rogue like Sparrow.

 _Clang-clang. Clang-clang._

Not that he would have to now, of course, the man was headed for the gallows in the morning. Will bit his lip as he pounded the iron back into shape where he had just accidentally twisted it. The look on Sparrow’s face…

 _Clang. Clang._

 _“Please move. This shot is not meant for you.”_

 _Silence._

Will paused mid swing, his hammer over his shoulder as the tongs had been this afternoon, arrested mid-action, mid-thought, mid-rhythm.

 _“This shot is not meant for you.”_

Well, that would explain why the pirate hadn’t just shot Will from his hiding spot in the shadows from the very first, but if he was unwilling to shoot even at a moment of extreme danger to himself? For whom was it meant? And if he wouldn’t shoot Will, then he wouldn’t have shot Elizabeth…was it a mere reluctance to give the local authorities more reason to chase him, or was it something else?

And what kind of a pirate says “please?”

It hardly fit with Will’s impression of the villains who had robbed him of his life twice over. Disturbed, he threw the unfinished plow blade in the scrap pile, mangled and dented in the way his work had not been since he was a second or third year apprentice. Perhaps he would try to salvage it in the morning. For now he needed to work on something that would keep his mind entirely occupied, and he pulled out a ready bar of sword-quality metal from the fire.

Perhaps the painstaking concentration required would drive away the terrible image in his mind’s eye--a red bandana swaying from the hangman’s noose.

 _Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang._

And as the rhythm of the forge resumed once more, up from the docks came the whistling whisper of a change in the wind.  



End file.
